Young Guru

Young Guru is a producer and DJ, most known for mixing the majority of Jay Z's albums. Because of his vast experience in sound engineering, production, and A&R for the acclaimed Roc-A-Fella Records and Def Jam Recordings, he is known as “The Sound of New York.” Young Guru frequently teaches and gives advice to young and up-and-coming producers, urging them to get to know the tools of the trade well and not get encumbered by the abundance of technology available. Check out some of Young Guru's favorite studio and lifestyle gear, as well as his very awesome headphones made in collaboration with AIAIAI.

Studio Equipment 8

The Symphony I/O is Young Guru's audio interface of choice. In an interview w... more

The Symphony I/O is Young Guru's audio interface of choice. In an interview with Apogee, when asked what features of it he likes he responds "Obviously that you can use it for Logic and Pro Tools. Someone should have thought of that a long time ago, to run Pro Tools HD and Logic, or anything native, on the same system, to be able to switch between HD Pro Tools and another native system is incredible... I loaded up some of my past sessions that I had used with another system, and it sounds 100% better coming out of the Symphony I/O converter."

In an interview with Akai, Young Guru can be seen using the Akai Professional... more

In an interview with Akai, Young Guru can be seen using the Akai Professional MPC Renaissance Controller. He talks about how he can bring over his classic MPC 3000 sounds and beats via a USB key, and how the MPC Renaissance acts as an audio interface.

"A Distressor compressor is probably my favorite compressor just because it's... more

"A Distressor compressor is probably my favorite compressor just because it's so versatile. And the amount of sweet distortion that you can get with it. It's one of the most modern pieces of gear that I've picked up and was like 'OK, this is great someone added on to the legacy of gear.'"

"MPC 3000 is always gonna be my favorite beat machine ever, for whatever reason. I've owned them all, and not just Akai beat machines - that one just has a sound to it that i think just can't be duplicated."

Headphones 1

These headphones were made as a collaboration between AIAIAI and Young Guru. ... more

These headphones were made as a collaboration between AIAIAI and Young Guru. Young Guru tweets "Me and @AIAIAITweet got together to create something great: http://www.aiaiai.dk/youngguru"

Young Guru's goal was to create a headphone that would not only be useful for casual listening and DJing, but also provide a flat frequency response so they can be used to accurately reference mixes. This means no artificially boosted bass or high frequencies.